


Sacred Vision

by HitchsWindow



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: AFFC spoilers, F/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-16
Updated: 2013-09-16
Packaged: 2017-12-26 18:20:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/968813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HitchsWindow/pseuds/HitchsWindow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Only a minute of rest, he had thought, and then I’ll get up and get the wolf-bitch. When he woke, the room was filled with warm light and he could no longer remember just what or whom he was going to get. It was a dream, he supposed, the type that drew into the waking hours and stuck there, nagging."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sacred Vision

The man awoke far later than he planned to. _Only a minute of rest,_ he had thought, _and then I’ll get up and get the wolf-bitch._ When he woke, the room was filled with warm light and he could no longer remember just what or whom he was going to get. It was a dream, he supposed, the type that drew into the waking hours and stuck there, nagging.

            He knew he had to get up; there were things to be done, and from the light he could already see that the day was near half spent. _Buggering hells, why’d she let me sleep so late?_  

            The warmth and breadth of the room felt familiar; it was the man’s bedroom, after all, though there was something about this moment that felt entirely forged.

            He sat up and stood from the bed, stretching his arms far enough to brush his palms to the roof above him. Bones in his back cracked greedily as the man made his way to pull on small clothes, breeches and a loose tunic.

            He approached the door that led from his and the woman’s bedroom to the kitchen and he could hear what sounded like cooking. The man salivated at the thought of bacon (though he had killed their last pig months ago, and the bacon was gone).

            He opened the door and was greeted with the familiar warmth of the kitchen—a tight space, though homey—and the smiles of his family.

            The man and woman had three children as of yet, a boy named for the man and two girls; one named for the woman’s sister and one for her mother. The boy was a comely lad, with curling black hair and eyes as blue as his mother’s. Of the two girls, the older was the beauty (with both her father’s hair and eyes, but all the delicate sensibilities of her mother) but the younger was all spunk with flaming red hair, a goofy grin and smatterings of freckles.

            They called to him as the man entered the room; glorious cries of “Papa! Papa” greeted him as the children pushed out of their chairs and ran to him. The man caught the younger girl in his arms and lifted her high into the air. She giggled. Only when she smiled did she look like her mother, though her teeth were as crooked as his own. He put her down and crouched to meet the eyes of his children.

            “Who’s idea was it to let Papa sleep so bloody late?” He asked them, and his children giggled. Even when he tried to be fierce with them, they never believed it. The man would die for his children.

            The three turned and pointed silent fingers behind them, smiles plastered on all of their faces.

            They were pointing at the woman, his wife, and she turned to face them.

            She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, and though he had not truly seen many outside of his lands, he liked to think that she was the most beautiful woman in all of Westeros.

            With her face came a hundred memories—moments they had had together as man and wife, as friends and as lovers. Walks among the trees and love making in the grass. Her face when he asked her for her hand, when he entered her the first time. The way her lips formed the words ‘I love you’ _and a sky alight with green flame, a song taken and not given, memories that seemed so dream-like and far away_.

            Her copper hair was not pulled into a braid, as it usually was, but was left flowing down her back and over her shoulders. Her features were as delicate as a lady, but smatterings of freckles betrayed her low birth. Her blue eyes met his grey ones and were so warm that they filled the man up to bursting.

            “I’m sorry,” she chirped, her voice as light as a bird’s song, “I thought it only fit to let you sleep as you were up so late for me last night.” She gave him a wicked grin and he returned it.

            “That’s fair, woman.” He ruffled his son’s hair and he stood to cross to her. His wife was tall, but he was a large man and he still towered over her. “But if I recall, it was I who kept you up.”

            She let him kiss her, then, though the man was careful not let it go too far in front of the children. In the early days of marriage, in the days before their birth, he would have taken her right there on the counter, but, of course, those days were over. Her lips were so soft against his own, so pliant and giving, that it almost hurt to pull away from her.

            His heart clenched as he looked at her beauty. The woman reached up and touched his face, letting her thumb linger on his lips for a moment before returning to what she was cooking.

            “You best sit down at the table now, Ser, the children have been waiting practically all morning to break their fast.”

            He brushed her comment off with a chuckle. They all set down for a breakfast of fresh fruit and eggs; the woman had even made biscuits, and the man ate five.

            When their meal was finished, the family dissipated to go on with their day. The woman, with the help of the children, went about little tasks while the man went out to check on the kennels.

            The man bred and trained dogs, and his reputation was such that they were considered some of the finest pups around. He didn’t really care what people said about them, as long as they bought enough to pay for the things that he needed.

            It was a hot day and so he slipped out behind his property to a small pond to wash himself. The woman liked to see him slick with the result of hard work, she had said once, but she hated to smell it.

            When he bent down to wash himself he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the water.

            The man never considered himself handsome, but he supposed he was not hard to look upon. It was a wonder, though, that his wife loved his looks so. His hair was black and he wore it long, his eyes a steely grey under heavy a brow. His features were angular; sharp, yet strong. He noted that a beard was beginning, and that he would need to shave soon. For a moment, he was struck by the symmetry of his face. It would have been perfect, if not for a small scar above his left eyebrow that he got in a fist fight. _He remembered then a face colored by hatred…as ugly as the soul it revealed, but that was not his face, not here._

            He made his way back in time to see his wife hanging laundry. A wind blew and a sheet went flying off of the line. She turned and her hair swirled around her. The wind caught the tendrils and the sun made her hair glow like fire. He could hear the clash of wooden swords. Soon his son would be old enough to squire, and he had secured a place for him at Karhold. He had yet to tell his little girl, who would be disappointed to hear that she would loose her sparring partner.

            He walked behind his wife and put his arms around her. He pulled her into him and she melted into his touch.

            “We’re happy, aren’t we?”  she asked, almost too quiet for him to hear.

            “Yes, I suppose we are, little bird.”

            The woman turned in his arms and put her hand lightly on his face.   _He had cried; she had sang and he had cried, he had gone to take her but had left her instead with a cloak._ She kissed him quickly before gathering her laundry and pulling him inside.

            The family enjoyed dinner in each others company before he went and tucked the children into bed. They shared one bed—they were young enough—and the bed was large.  He looked at their faces for a moment, puzzled at their serene expressions before heading back to his own bedroom.

            The woman was already lying in bed, her hair splayed across their pillow. He chuckled.

            “Tired, are we?”

            “Indeed, Ser.” She smiled at him, before reaching her arms out to him. “Come to bed, Sandor, and I’ll sing you to sleep. “

            He striped off his tunic and breeches and slipped into bed beside his wife. She sang him the song of Florian and Jonquil while he ran his fingers through her hair. He felt sleep enclosing on him, and yet he did not want to go quite yet. _If I sleep I will leave this for good, if I sleep I will be no more._

            She hummed pleasantly, her fingers brushed across the skin of his chest.

            “Do you remember,” he asked. “When we first met?”

            “I was a maid then,” She sighed, and laughed. “A naïve maid.”

            “Aye,” he said, “and I was a bear, come to take my maiden fair.”

            _No, you were a hound, and she was a bird to be feasted on by lions._

            “And now you have me. I love you, Sandor.”

            He looked at her to memorize the contours on her face, the creases caused by years of joy and the beginning of aging. Her eyes held his own and he couldn’t help but wonder if there was anything quite as lovely as the woman.

            The man was not a man of words, and so he didn’t oft say ‘I love you’, though his wife did not have to look hard to see it. It was in his eyes, so often steely, but soft as feather down in her presence. He rolled over so he was on top of her; she reached her hand up to brush against his face.

            “Sansa,” he whispered, touching her flaming hair.

            “Hmm?”

            The woman turned her nose up to look at him, and he noted that something was different in her face—her freckles were gone, and her skin looked fuller.

            He glanced out the window and noted the sky was filled with a green light. Beneath him, the woman was cooing, singing the mother’s hymn.

           

…

 

            Sandor Clegane awoke in a room far darker than the room he had left. He felt feverish, and his leg throbbed. He moaned out Sansa’s name, quietly at first, but before he was done he was screaming it. He was not, as he had dreamed, a scar-less man who lived simply in the country. He was the Lannister’s Hound; a dog and little more, who had abandoned a little girl to the lions. He had not taken her away. He had not held her in his arms, not truly, nor had he kissed her lips or even loved her. Sansa Stark, despite her courtesy, had never looked at him with anything sweeter than pity.

            A voice called to him from the dark and named himself Elder Brother; he explained to him how he had found him by the road, and how he brought him back from the brink of death. He hated him for that. He wanted to go back, back to that world…wherever that was. He could have killed the Elder Brother, but instead, he turned his head to the wall and cried.

 


End file.
